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No more factory fodder
Comment by ROSS PEAKE
Thousands of the migrants who
came to Australia after World War
II had little English and became
factory fodder. Many factories
grouped workers according to their
ethnic backgrounds.
There were few English classes
and the groupings reduced the moti
vation to learn a new language.
That deficiency caught up to fed
eral Cabinet yesterday. Gerry Hand
told his colleagues the inability of
some older migrants to speak
English had been repeatedly im
pressed on him.
He believes the technological
changes and industry restructuring
are likely to condemn many of the
early migrants to a second-class citi
zenship. He's determined the same
will not occur again.
Thus he convinced Cabinet to im
pose a tough test — prospective
migrants to Australia in the
independent-skills category will
have to be able to speak English if
they want to work as doctors, teach
ers, pharmacists, engineers, fitters,
electrical mechanics, and many jobs
in the airline industry.
Continued on Page 2

No factory

fodder

Continued from Page 1

The slash in next financial year's in
take by 31,000 (from 111,000 this year)
had been widely expected, and is an
explicit reaction to the high unemploy
ment generated by the recession.

The ethnic communities lobby criti
cised the extension of the English lan
guage test while the Opposition and the
Democrats called for deeper cuts.

The political impact is that the Gov
ernment has undercut much of the Op
position's hype on immigration. A
Hewson-led Government would slash
further, possibly down to 50,000 if the
recession continued to hurt. But by bit
ing the bullet now, the Government has
acceded to union demands and kept
faith with the electorally sensitive eth
nic lobby (which the former Prime Min
ister carefully cultivated) by continuing
the family reunion program.

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